Whether this step by the notoriously uncooperative MS is because of a rival Welsh version of Linux is, I think, largely irrelevant. They're doing it, and a lot more people use MS than use Linux so at the end of the day we'll have both systems and therefore the majority of Welsh computer users catered for. And that has to be a positive step forward for the language.

Personally, I'd love to use a Welsh Linux instead of Windows. Hell, I'd love to use anything instead of Windows, but frankly Linux scares me – I'm just not techie enough to want to learn how to use it. Maybe when I've more time on my hands I shall.

one box art supplies
one box photos
two boxes linen, towels &c.
two boxes videos (still some to pack)
numerous* boxes kitchen implements, crockery, pots &c.
numerous boxes books
numerous boxes stuff from uni/school that I've not looked at since I first packed it up
two boxes unread magazines (for shame, for shame)

Packing's coming along ok, actualy, even though I'm sick of it already. I toyed with the idea of throwing out a lot of the stuff I've kept from my childhood and school days, but then I thought that all that stuff is not just stuff, it's an archive of my life. I have papers, clippings, school reports, letters, cards, school projects, photos, all sorts of material which could, were I to have the time, be sorted out into a meaningful commentary on my life and what I deemed to be important to keep at the time.

My favourite things, though, are my childhood diaries from holidays to Cornwall, which if nothing else are interesting for my creative attitude to spelling back then, e.g. 'We walked up the hedeland'. If it'd been 'hedland' I could have understood that as a basic phonetic mistake, but 'hedeland'? I think i was probably channelling Pepys at the time.

I know it's a bit of a millstone around my neck, but I have decided not to even start to sort out that archival stuff. I'm going to just rebox it and store it. One day, when I have some time to kill, I can go through it all and spend a few months in regression.

Any poor soul who's visited my blog over the last hour may have seen any one of a number of ghastly design mistakes which should, quite frankly, never have made it into the Blog-City template list. If you were one of the victims of poor colour co-ordination and painfully bad design, I do apologise. I just hope that the vomiting has stopped now.

I was looking for a template that didn't look shit on a Mac, but I discovered that the standard templates just all look shit, Mac or no Mac. Instead I've tweaked my usual template and hope that will do.

If you are on a Mac and using Safari, please can you leave me a note or comment to say if the blog is now both easily readable and not too grim to look at.

Queen of the May

Every year, on May Day, a young woman is stolen away by the faeries to become their Queen for a year. This year, though, the faeries have bitten off more than they can chew. Shakti Nayar will do whatever it takes to get her own life as a botanist back. As she struggles to work out how to get home, she uncovers Faerie’s dark secret and finds that she is not the only human who needs saving.

The Lacemaker

All the threads looked the same to the innocent eye, but Maude could see the black heart running up through one strand as it wove its way through the lace roundel. She busied herself with tidying her bobbins as a customer browsed the lace mats on her stall.

“I’ll take this one,” the woman said, holding up a square piece, twelve inches across. Maude winced, picked up the piece she had just completed and held it out to the woman for her consideration.

Argleton

Matt is fascinated by the story of Argleton, the unreal town that appeared on GeoMaps but which doesn’t actually exist. When he and his friend and flatmate Charlie are standing at the exact longitude and latitude that defines Argleton, Matt sets in motion a chain of events that will take him places he didn’t know existed… and which perhaps don’t.

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A Passion for Science

From the identification of the Horsehead Nebula to the creation of the computer program, from the development of in vitro fertilisation to the detection of pulsars, A Passion for Science: Stories of Discovery and Invention brings together inspiring stories of how we achieved some of the most important breakthroughs in science and technology.